Hi, my name is Yesenia Borenstein. I have worked for Miami Dade County for 9 years now, 7 of those years as a Police Dispatcher and Trainer. I dedicated those years to helping others and making sure that every officer I communicated with was able to make it home to their families, safe and sound. I also helped new trainee’s find their voice and train them to be the best dispatchers in the County. But, of all the people I have sought to help, the one person I can't help, is my mom. My mom was just diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease (think Steven Hawking). And this disease will kill her.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare neurological disease that primarily affects the nerve cells responsible for controlling voluntary muscle movement. Voluntary muscles produce movements like chewing, walking, and talking. The disease is progressive, meaning the symptoms get worse over time, attacking a person's ability to walk, talk, eat and eventually breathe. Currently, there is no cure for ALS and no effective treatment to halt or reverse the progression of the disease. The average lifespan is 2 to 5 years from onset of symptoms (which she has now had for a little over a year). This disease is very rare; at any given time there are only 30,000 people living with it in the United States. Medications are extremely costly. Just one of her medications cost $692.00 for only a 30 day supply.

My mom and dad brought me here in 1995, escaping the oppression of Communism in Cuba. They uprooted their lives to bring me here, I was 6, to the hope of a better life. This country has provided us with everything my parents could have ever hoped for, freedoms they could have never even imagined, for themselves and their daughters (I have a half sister after my parents divorced and re-married).

My mom’s symptoms started in June of 2020 with slurred speech, random uncontrollable outbursts of laughing or crying and difficulty keeping her balance/walking. What followed for the next 18 months has been the most awful and heartbreaking thing to watch. My once independent working 54-year-old mom, who cared for herself, her husband and children, can no longer speak complete sentences, she can’t text or write and she is rapidly losing her ability to walk independently.

And she needs your help, we need your help. I am starting this GoFundMe to help with the expenses of this disease because its other name is the “bankruptcy disease.” My mom’s husband is retired, without insurance. My mom does not have insurance. We are now trying to get her Medicare assistance, with no promise of acceptance or approval time. While Medicare (if accepted) does cover things like breathing machines, hospital beds and wheelchairs, there are still 20% co-pays on everything. And the biggest expense is home health care/aides. My mom needs someone to be with her and to help her at all times. This is not covered at all, so it is paid completely out of pocket. As of now, the weekly cost of home health aides will be around/greater than $1,500/week, and that cost may go up as time goes on, we don’t know.

If you personally know me, you know that I do not ask for help. But this is different. This is for my mom. She greatly needs your help. Anything and everything helps and we greatly appreciate it!!

Any money not used towards my mom's care will be donated in her name.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for your assistance! If you could kindly please share.

Yesenia Borenstein